Horror movies often save their biggest scares for the latter half, building up tension before exploding into all out terror. Extrapolate that over 10 hour-long episodes, and you have Netflix's newest horror show, The Haunting of Hill House. It makes for some fantastically scary final episodes and a relatively slow early half. If you can get invested in the Cranes' family drama, it's worth sticking through.
That family drama can at first be hard to follow. The Cranes are a big, unhappy family, and The Haunting of Hill House jumps frequently between their childhood and adults selves. That means there are young and old versions of Nelly Crane (Violet McGraw/Victoria Pedretti), Luke Crane (Julian Hilliard/Oliver Jackson-Cohen), Theo Crane (Mckenna Grace/Kate Siegel), Shirley Crane (Lulu Wilson/Elizabeth Reaser), and Steven Crane (Paxton Singleton/Michiel Huisman), not to mention their father, Hugh Crane (Henry Thomas/Timothy Hutton), their mother, Olivia (Carla Gugino), and various other characters like Hill House's dual caretakers, the adult characters' various spouses, and more. Especially at first, it can simply be hard to follow which young character corresponds to which adult character, despite the show's sometimes half-hearted efforts to give them similar mannerisms or otherwise connect the young and old versions visually.
The Haunting of Hill House follows the Cranes throughout their strange, cursed lives, from the moment they move into Hill House--meant to be a single summer spent remodeling the house so they can sell it--to, in some cases, their bitter ends. Hill House's first victim (among the Crane family, at least) is the mother, Olivia, whose mysterious death haunts the family for the rest of their lives. In the present, they wrestle with another death while fighting with each other over hurts both petty and real.
If you stick with it, you'll eventually connect the dots, although stretched out as it is across 10 episodes, the drama can still be exhausting. That's in large part due to the show's structure. It's not just the constant jumping between past and present; the show also likes to show us only bits and pieces of events, deliberately keeping us in the dark until it feels like making certain reveals. The season's first half also repeats itself constantly, as each episode covers the same series of events from a different character's perspective (and remember, there are a ton of them). That makes for lots of repetition, glacial pacing, and an overall feeling of treading water.
The upside of that is it makes each episode's one or two really solid scares all the more startling. And halfway through the season, when all the characters' storylines catch up to one another and they finally come together, things pick up considerably. Around the same time, the scares get more intense, with the greatest jumps coming late in the season. If you're in it just for those, you might find it taxing to sit through the early episodes. That said, there's plenty more to appreciate about the season as a whole.
Take the house itself. Hill House is very well designed, with multiple set pieces within the structure that will quickly jump out and lodge themselves in your imagination. There's the red door that's always locked and can't be opened with any tools or force, and the red room behind it that seems to be occupied, though that's clearly impossible. There's the iron spiral staircase with the Chekhov's gun of loosely tied hemp ropes ever present tied around it, the eery statue gallery the characters barely acknowledge--like it's totally normal to have a room full of creepy sculptures in the middle of your home--and the dumb waiter leading to a secret basement that's not on any floor plan.
By the same token, Hill House is full of strongly characterized spooks, ghouls, and specters. There's the Bent Neck Lady, a floating ghost who appears to Nelly in her bed as a child, and elsewhere later in life. There's the Bowler Hat Man, an impossibly tall Slender Man lookalike who rhythmically taps his cane despite floating above the ground. There's a gnarled old lady who seems tied to one bedroom, an ephemeral girl who lives in the woods and visits to play with Luke, and the manipulative 1920s flapper girl. And there may or may not be a zombie in the basement.
The Haunting of Hill House is a horror movie in slow motion. It has too many characters, and gives too few answers. But it's also an atmospheric trip through one family's life, with a long, detailed view of the traumas they experience at the hands of a single haunted house and the ghouls that inhabit it. Even though it's slow at the start, it's worth seeing through to the end.
The Haunting of Hill House is streaming now on Netflix.
The weekend is upon us, which for Destiny 2 players means that Xur--the mysterious merchant who's here to either delight or disappoint you--has arrived. He's got another slate of Exotic items for sale, which you have a limited time to buy. Here's where to find Xur and what he's selling for this week.
Xur's Year 2 appearances have seen him return to his same old locations, and this visit is no different. Right now, you can find Xur on Titan. Head to the The Rig landing zone, turn left, and make your way through the open building. Once you reach the next wide open area, turn left again and drop down one floor. You'll find Xur hanging out in a building, as seen in the map below; you can also watch our video above for guidance on how to reach him.
In terms of items, it's the standard lineup: one Exotic armor for each class, and one Exotic weapon. The weapon is Tractor Cannon, the Portal gun-looking shotgun that prevents affected enemies from using abilities and makes them take more damage, especially from void. More entertainingly, however, it also blasts enemies backwards.
For armor, Titans get the Synthoceps gauntlets, which increases how far you can lunge with a melee attack and provides you with more melee and Super damage when surrounded by enemies. Hunters can pick up the Gemini Jester leg armor, which provides your dodge with some added perks: it disorients enemies and causes their radar to disappear temporarily. Warlocks can grab the Sanguine Alchemy chest armor; this buffs your Rift to provide you and allies with some enhancements. This includes being able to see your radar when aiming down sights and visual markers being placed on powerful enemies. You might already own this armor, but bear in mind that these are Year 2 versions that feature more perks than the versions from Year 1 you might have.
Alongside these specific items for sale, Xur offers the Fated Engram. This is expensive, at 97 Legendary Shards, but it guarantees you a Year One Exotic you don't already own, so it's a good way to fill out your collection, provided you can afford it.
Although this week didn't bring with it much in the way of new content, aside from the latest Ascendant Challenge, there is a lot coming soon. Tuesday, October 16, will see the release of the first of two big updates launching for the game this month. This patch will coincide with the debut of Festival of the Lost, Destiny 2's Halloween-themed event, as well as the next instance of Iron Banner. Unlike the first instance of the multiplayer activity after Forsaken's release, this one will have easier bounties, and each one will offer a piece of Powerful gear as a reward. For more on what's new in the world of Destiny, check out our guide to the latest weekly reset.
Fortnite: Battle Royale's Guided Missile is causing problems again. The weapon, which was initially Vaulted back in April due to balance concerns and brought back several months later after being heavily modified, has once again been temporarily removed from Fortnite, this time due to a bug.
Developer Epic Games announced on Twitter that it was disabling the Guided Missile while it investigates an unspecified issue. The studio didn't elaborate further on the reason for its removal, but according to Fortnite Leaks, it seems players have discovered a way to exploit the Missile while consuming Shadow Stones, allowing them to use weapons while being invisible.
Shadow Stones have likewise been the source of some headaches for Epic since they were introduced at the start of Season 6. These, too, have been removed from the game several times already. Consuming one allows a player to assume a shadow form, and they normally would not be able to use any weapons while in this state, although previous bugs have allowed just that. The stones were finally re-enabled last week alongside the game's 6.01 update.
Epic hasn't provided an estimate for how long the Guided Missile will be disabled. Typically, the developer is able to resolve these types of issues fairly quickly, but as the Shadow Stones have indicated, there's no telling what other issues may arise.
While the Guided Missile may not be available in the game right now, a new type of vehicle will be soon. Fortnite's in-game News feed has teased the arrival of a vehicle called the Quadcrasher, which will be able to drive through structures. The vehicle will presumably arrive as part of next week's update. Meanwhile, this week's 6.02 patch added the Quad Launcher, a new weapon that can fire four rockets in quick succession.
Competitive gaming is by no means a new phenomenon, but only in recent years has its potential been so widely recognized. Thanks to bigger prize pools and improvements to streaming, the scene is continuing to grow. With those larger audiences comes expanded levels of interest from investors--and among those taking a close look are individuals from a place you might not expect: traditional sports.
In the latest episode of GameSpot Chronicle, which you can watch above, we chat with a variety of individuals who believe in the potential future of competitive gaming. That includes Sebastian Park, the vice president of esports for Clutch Gaming and the NBA's Houston Rockets, who thinks it can become a top three sport in the world.
We also spoke with Rick Fox, the former Los Angeles Lakers player and current owner of esports team Echo Fox, and Kirk Lacob, assistant general manager of the Golden State Warriors, an NBA team that's invested heavily in esports. Along with Park, they talk in the video about the continuing investments that are being made to help competitive gaming reach its potential, both in terms of increasing production values and improving things better for players.
"Esports is 24/7, 365 days," Fox said. "And we're building an industry and building on an industry foundation that's been laid long before I showed up. But what I'm hoping to do is add value to this community of esports by delivering on the same passion, the same energy--and there are no off-days."
The Assassin's Creed franchise has always been a mixture of three different stories. There's the present day narrative, the historical Assassins vs. Templars story, and also the tale of Those Who Came Before--the Isu--and the creation of their Pieces of Eden. Prior to Assassin's Creed Odyssey, the franchise wove together these three narratives into one playable story across each of its games, but Ubisoft's newest title splits its campaign into three separate parts.
As a result, beating Assassin's Creed Odyssey's main campaign--Kassandra or Alexios' story--and watching the last cutscene is not the end. Kassandra and Alexios' quest does conclude, but the ending to both the present day narrative and the Isu story can only be unlocked by completing certain optional quests. In total, there are three "final" cutscenes in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and the optional two are fairly easy to miss. Read ahead to make sure you don't.
The rest of this article delves into several of Assassin's Creed Odyssey's mid- to late-game features and missions. If you haven't at least finished Episode 7 of the game--you'd have unlocked the "Legend in the Making" Achievement/Trophy--then turn back if you don't want to be spoiled. If you're at least at that point, don't worry. We won't be going into detail about what Odyssey's three endings are or the serious lore implications some of them have. This is just a guide for how to reach those endings.
First Storyline - Odyssey
This is the first storyline you unlock in the game, and probably the first you'll complete. The game's main story--as it primarily focuses on Kassandra and Alexios' quest to reunite their family--is called Odyssey, and it's the only mandatory narrative you need to complete to beat Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Doing so will cause the game's credits to roll.
The Odyssey storyline can end in several different ways depending on your actions throughout the game. Who you saved, which targets you killed, and what dialogue options you picked determine one of nine different conclusions to Kassandra and Alexios' story. However, if you want to know what happens to some of the other characters--both during ancient Greece and in the present day--as well as how Assassin's Creed Odyssey ties into the rest of the franchise, you'll need to finish the two optional stories.
Second Storyline - Hunt The Cult Of Kosmos
You'll discover the Cult of Kosmos relatively early into Odyssey's storyline, and from there it breaks off into a separate questline called Hunt The Cult Of Kosmos. Snippets of this storyline will interweave into Odyssey throughout the rest of the game, but to complete Hunt The Cult of Kosmos, you'll need to do a lot of optional assassination missions.
Completing Hunt The Cult Of Kosmos unlocks an extra cutscene that completes the present day narrative. Layla and her companions' story is left fairly open at the end of the game, so if you want to see what happens next, you'll have to finish Hunt The Cult Of Kosmos. To do that, you'll need to kill the leader of the cult, who's known as The Ghost of Kosmos.
Getting to The Ghost is not nearly as straightforward as the game's other targets. There are eight branches of cultists, seven of which have six members while the last only has one. You'll need to follow clues to discover the identities of every low-ranking member, find each one, and kill them; that's the only way to learn the identities of the Sages they serve. Each of the eight Sages hides a clue to The Ghost's identity, so once you've dealt with them, you can go after the cult's mastermind.
You will need to be a high level--somewhere between 48 and 50--and carry very good armor and weapons to deal with some of the cult's strongest members. Because of how long Hunt The Cult Of Kosmos is, there's a good chance you complete the other two storylines first, but the order doesn't matter. Some of the cult's members are relatively weak--between levels 15 and 20--so you can start hunting for their identities while completing the other two storylines and return later to kill any high ranking cultists after Kassandra/Alexios has grown stronger.
Third Storyline - Between Two Worlds
The final cutscene is unlocked by completing the third narrative, Between Two Worlds, which only becomes available once you discover the lost city of Atlantis during the Odyssey storyline. Between Two Worlds is the shortest storyline in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, but it's arguably the hardest.
To complete it, you'll need to overcome four mythological creatures in the world. Three of them--the Minotaur, the Cyclops, and Medusa--are some of the game's hardest boss battles. The fourth, the Sphinx, is a series of challenging riddles. You'll start Between Two Worlds about three-quarters of the way through Odyssey, but you'll probably still need to level up a bit before taking this storyline on.
You definitely want to complete Between Two Worlds, though. The four mythological creatures represent some of the most fascinating side quests, amazing fights, and clever puzzles in the entire game. Plus, the cutscene you earn for completing the storyline provides both answers and further questions to the Isu, the Pieces of Eden, and what might be included in Assassin's Creed Odyssey's upcoming The Fate of Atlantis DLC.
The fall 2018 anime season is underway, and there's a bunch of new series airing on Netflix, Amazon, Crunchyroll, Funimation, and HIDIVE. Here are our seven top recommendations you should add to your queue.
Of all the anime this season, Bloom Into You is the must watch. This love story between two high school girls also addresses the pressures of living with low self-worth and the struggles of understanding asexual love. Despite the heaviness of the story's drama, there are both brief snippets of hilarity and quiet moments of internal resilience that draw you into the changing dynamic between the second-year student council president--who can't escape her dead sister's shadow--and the young first-year--who dreams of falling in love but doesn't feel the emotions that manga and music say she should.
Animated by Troyca, Inc--the studio responsible for the spectacular 2017 anime Re:Creators--and featuring music by Michiru Oshima--who's composed music for anime like Fullmetal Alchemist and video games like The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess--Bloom Into You might be the most gorgeous anime this season, both to watch and listen to. The series is exclusively airing on HIDIVE in both Japanese and English.
Zombie Land Saga is about an ordinary high school girl who leaves her house to start her first day of school--only to be struck and killed by a passing truck. She wakes up 10 years later, revived as a zombie by an eccentric young man who wants to manage an idol group entirely composed of the living dead. The story mixes together idol tropes and common zombie story stereotypes to create something truly bizarre, but it's all surprisingly fun to watch. The series airs in English on Funimation and in Japanese on Crunchyroll.
A bit more somber, Iroduku: The World in Colors is a series about a teenage witch, named Hitomi, who's colorblind and lives in the year 2078. That is, until her grandmother transports Hitomi 60 years into the past to 2018. Now lost in a world she doesn't completely recognize and lacking the know-how to complete certain tasks--like needing paper money to pay for things--Hitomi struggles to find the teenager who will one day grow up to be her grandmother so she can go home. The anime is already setting itself up to explore similar themes to what we saw in 2016's Orange. Which isn't surprising, as Yuuko Kakihara--who worked on the script for five of Orange's episodes--is the writer for The World in Colors.
This season also features a few new isekai--stories where a normal person from our world is transported to another--but the one you want to watch is That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime. It's pretty much exactly about what the name implies. A dude from our world dies and he's reborn as a cute little blob of sentient goo in a fantasy world of dragons and goblins. The series is a little weird at first, but stick with it--the manga that the anime is based on goes to some charming places. The show is airing in the original Japanese on Crunchyroll and in English on Funimation.
Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighborhood is a cute story about a doll-loving middle-schooler moving in with a centuries-old otaku vampire who looks to be no older than a high school first-year. The first episode tackles the "but where are the parents" problem that most anime have with a humorous twist, and flips the regular person meeting a vampire dynamic by having the normal girl be the strange one with habits that are difficult to comprehend. The first episode of Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighborhood possesses tremendous comedic timing and plays off your expectations of slice-of-life tropes in pretty hilarious ways. You can watch the anime on Crunchyroll.
Golden Kamuy returns on Crunchyroll and Funimation with a second season, continuing the adventures of our favorite band of ridiculous treasure seekers who are racing to find certain escaped convicts who have strange tattoos all over their bodies. When combined, the tattoos complete map that leads to a massive pile of gold, which pretty much everyone in the anime wants for themselves. Golden Kamuy's first season aired this past spring, and ended fairly abruptly in the middle of the anime's story, so it's good to see the show continue again so quickly.
Castlevania is also getting its second season this fall. Once again, the anime is exclusive to Netflix, but that also means you get the whole season up front. Capturing the aesthetic of the video game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Castlevania the anime portrays the bloody tale of Trevor Belmont's quest to defeat Dracula. Castlevania delves into murder, gore, and heroes and villains that are both right in their own way and also deeply flawed. Think Berserk or Devilman Crybaby. Castlevania can be unsettling at times, but the show captures the essence of the Castlevania video game because of it
The full list of anime series and movies that have been confirmed to premier this fall on Amazon, Crunchyroll, Funimation, HIDIVE, and Netflix are listed below. We'll update the list if additional titles are announced.
Fall 2018 Anime Release Date Schedule (U.S.)
Amazon
October 5
Boarding School Juliet
Iroduku: The World in Colors
October 11
Le Cirque de Karakuri
Crunchyroll
October 1
That Time I Go Reincarnated as a Slime
October 3
RErideD: Derrida, who leaps through time
October 4
Zombie Land Saga
October 5
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind
October 6
Goblin Slayer
Radiant
SSSS Gridman
Sword Art Online: Alicization
October 7
Ulysses: Jeanne d'Arc and the Alchemist Knight
October 8
Golden Kamuy (Season 2)
October 12
Senran Kagura Shinovi Master
Funimation
October 1
Space Battleship Tiramisu Zwei (Season 2)
That Time I Go Reincarnated as a Slime
October 6
Ace Attorney (Season 2)
SSSS Gridman
October 8
Golden Kamuy (Season 2)
October 9
Tokyo Ghoul:re (Season 2)
HIDIVE
October 1
The Girl in Twilight
October 5
Bloom Into You
October 7
Release The Spyce
Netflix
October 3
Violet Evergarden: Special
October 15
The Seven Deadly Sins: Revival of The Commandments
October 26
Castlevania (Season 2)
October 30
Fate/EXTRA Last Encore: Illustrias Geocentrism Theory
Marvel has signed on Ryan Coogler to write and direct the sequel to Black Panther. Coogler is currently in the midst of developing Wrong Answer--which stars Black Panther's Michael B. Jordan--and executive producing the sequel to Space Jam.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Coogler is aiming to start production on the sequel as early as next year--sometime between late 2019 and early 2020. Marvel has not yet announced a release window for the movie. Currently, the only MCU films on the horizon are Captain Marvel, Avengers 4, and Spider-Man: Far From Home.
Black Panther focuses on the the titular hero, a fictional African prince and superhero who must prove he has what it takes to be king of his country, Wakanda, and a symbol for the rest of the world. Starring Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa, aka Black Panther, the movie was a massive critical and commercial success, earning more than $1.3 billion worldwide.
It comes as no surprise then, that Black Panther is getting a sequel. After Black Panther's debut, Coogler and his creative team didn't sign on for anything, and instead took the time to make the best possible deal with Marvel they could.
Black Panther was one of our favorite movies of 2018. In our Black Panther review, Michael Rougeau wrote, "Black Panther is a top tier Marvel movie with all the humor, style, action, passion, and fun that the MCU has come to embody. Black Panther is a cultural event that's going to be hard for Marvel to top, no matter how many worlds Thanos conquers later this year in Infinity War."
Rare has announced a new update for Sea of Thieves that adds a new type of quest to the action-adventure pirate simulation. Update 1.3.1 also patches some of the game's bugs and makes quality-of-life improvements.
The new type of quest is called Cargo Runs and completing them allows you to rank up in the Merchant Alliance. The mission parameters are relatively simple. After selecting a Cargo Run contract, you need to find the cargo in question, obtain it by whatever means you deem necessary, and take it to its destination. You're rated on speed and how well you handled the goods, so if you want the best possible reward, you'll need to travel as fast as you can while also being careful to not damage the cargo.
Update 1.3.1 makes several other changes to preexisting features and mechanics. The new Cargo Runs are now always included in Athena's Fortune voyages. From now on, rowboats will take more damage from Gunpowder Barrels, and you'll be able to push your rowboat if it happens to get stuck under an environmental obstacle. It's also much more worth your time to pursue Skeleton Ships, as the reward for defeating Skeleton Captain-led ships has doubled.
For the full Update 1.3.1 patch notes, including known issues that Rare is working, check out Sea of Thieves' main website. We've listed the major issues that Update 1.3.1 fixes below. Sea of Thieves is available for Xbox One and PC.
Sea of Thieves Update 1.3.1 Fixed Issues
Rowboats now cast appropriate reflections in water.
Rowboats no longer get damaged when detaching from a ship.
Player sitting in the middle of the Rowboat can now see players sitting at the back of the Rowboat.
Removed overlapping audio when rowing.
Damaged Rowboats no longer appear pristine upon returning to them after venturing far away.
Rowboats no longer inherit damage decals from other sources (such as damaged ships or shipwrecks) when in close vicinity.
Looking as far left/right as possible whilst rowing a Rowboat will no longer result in the camera becoming occasionally unlocked and rotating 360 degrees.
When placing larger items on the Rowboat, water splash VFX will no longer occur.
Audio when rowing a Rowboat over large distances (especially the squeaking) is now less repetitive.
Available titles now show up in the clothing shop on Morrow's Peak Outpost.
Fixed issue with horizontal water planes being cut off whilst a ship is sinking.
Players no longer get permanently drunk when migrating servers whilst holding the Chest of a Thousand Grogs.
Players should no longer get an unfinishable riddle quest on Fetcher's Rest.
Audio will no longer drop out when climbing the ladder onto a Brigantine.
View Gamer Card option under Crew Settings will now respond correctly to a left mouse click.
Geysers will no longer appear on top of chests.
Flooding at the back of a Sloop will appear visually correct when sinking.
The ocean will appear completely black when a Kraken encounter begins.
Looking through the scope of an Eye of Reach will no longer trigger the sound effect multiple times.
Upon loading into a session, the loading music will now commence as soon as the loading screen appears.
Sailing away from your ship on a Rowboat will no longer cause a mermaid to spawn.
The ocean will no longer appear separated from the sky when viewing the horizon from within a storm.
The glow of the Kraken lantern will no longer appear too bright in HDR.
Sail ropes will no longer appear disjointed from the sails when a player returns from the Ferry.
There is no longer a gap at the bottom of the volcano on Devil's Thirst.
Collision has been corrected on the Devil's Thirst volcano so players can no longer fall into the model.
Player will no longer temporarily lose access to some ship barrels if their first banana, plank or cannonball of the session is washed up or given to them.
Available titles now correctly appear in the clothing shop on Morrow's Peak Outpost.
Titles will no longer incorrectly appear on Seaposts.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 launches with 14 multiplayer maps. There's already a 15th map scheduled for November as a post-launch expansion, but it will be free for all players.
Right now, players have access to Arsenal, Contraband, Firing Range, Frequency, Gridlock, Hacienda, Icebreaker, Jungle, Militia, Morocco, Payload, Seaside, Slums, and Summit. Four of the maps--Firing Range, Jungle, Slums, and Summit--are all from previous Black Ops games, but with a visual upgrade. In November, the Call of Duty classic Nuketown, also remastered with upgraded visuals, will become available. Treyarch hasn't announced how map updates after Nuketown will work, but they'll probably be a part of paid DLC expansions.
According to Forbes, the 14 original maps are described as follows:
Arsenal: Hostile covert ops on a manufacturing facility of a powerful North American military defense contractor means someone may have stolen the keys to the castle.
Contraband: Surveillance of an international arms smuggling operation has uncovered this shipping hub on a remote, uncharted island off the coast of Colombia.
Firing Range: US Forces gear up for red team/blue team combat exercises in this Guantanamo Bay military base.
Frequency: A covert listening station deep in the mountainous region of Hunan Province is being used to track strategic targets across the globe.
Gridlock: A Japanese metropolis whose city center has been jammed up by a bank heist gone wrong.
Hacienda: A lavish vineyard estate situated on a quiet lake in the Spanish countryside, home to a high-ranking crime syndicate boss.
Icebreaker: A long lost Nuclear submarine in the Arctic houses a uranium supply which a Russian unit has come to salvage.
Jungle: The heat is on as Cold War forces collide in the sweltering depths of the Vietnam jungle.
Militia: Anti-government extremists backed covertly by a Russian cell are stockpiling weaponry in a remote region of Alaskan wilderness near the Bearing Strait.
Morocco: Rebels in a small Moroccan village are using government military supply planes as target practice as they fly over the surrounding Sahara Desert.
Payload: A defensive ICBM launch facility deep in an Icelandic mountain range has been infiltrated by hostile forces attempting to steal a nuclear warhead.
Seaside: An anti-government protest in this quaint coastal Spanish town grew out of control and forced a military shutdown.
Slums: Street battles rage in head to head heat through the center of a run down Panama neighborhood.
Summit: Cold War surveillance is at its peak above the clouds in the mountaintop listening post in the Ural Mountains.
These maps do not include the ones exclusive to Black Ops 4's Zombies and Blackout mode. In Zombies, IX and Voyage of Despair are the two maps for the new Chaos storyline, while Blood of the Dead is the map for the Aether storyline--which continues the overarching narrative from the previous three Black Ops games. Blackout launches with only one map, but it's the biggest one the Call of Duty franchise has ever seen.
The Farm 51 has announced that the first-person shooter World War 3 will release in early access on October 19. The game costs $28 USD to download and play. We've reached out to ask about European and Australian prices.
World War 3 takes tactical, modern day combat and puts it on a global battlefield. Where Halo is sci-fi, Battlefield has destructive environments, and Call of Duty fantasizes high-speed combat, World War 3 is aiming for a more authentic experience. Your character can't perform superhuman feats and the ballistic system for each gun behaves as it would in the real world. You'll have to be careful and rely on your teammates if you hope to win matches.
Multiplayer matches host 64 players at a time, and the tide of the war will have your team constantly switching between attacking enemy positions, or defending your own. So far, World War 3 has two modes, Warzone and Recon. In Warzone, you travel to real-world locations--like Berlin and Warsaw--to engage in massive battles where your team will need to respond to multiple threats while planning your own attacks. Recon mode is much smaller, tasking squads with securing "high-value targets in hostile territory" where individual decisions have a more immediate impact.
World War 3 launches in early access on PC. The Farm 51 is also considering bringing the game to consoles at a certain point, but nothing has been decided yet.
505 Games has announced that Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice will be getting a physical retail edition. Coming to both Xbox One and PS4, the physical edition will be available on December 4.
Originally releasing in 2017 as a PS4 console exclusive, Hellblade eventually launched on Xbox One in 2018. The game was then ported to Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and if you already own the game on PC then you'll unlock the VR version of the game for free.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice was one of our top 10 games of 2017. The game puts you in the shoes of Senua, a Pict warrior who's traveling through a long-abandoned Nordic land. Her journey forces her to confront her guilt-ridden past that takes on the form of literal enemies, spectral remnants, and vivid hallucinations. Hellblade forces you to undergo numerous trials--ranging from harrowing fights to perspective-bending puzzles--and captures the surreal experience of someone suffering from poor mental health.
In our Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice review, GameSpot editor Alessandro Fillari gave the game an 8/10, writing, "Hellblade's most notable achievement is the handling of an incredibly sensitive subject matter within an engaging and well-crafted action/adventure game. At its heart, the story is about Senua's struggle to come to terms with her illness. In the process, she learns to find the strength within herself to endure, and to make peace with her past. And in a profound and physical way, we go through those same struggles with her, and come away with a better understanding of a piece of something that many people in the world struggle with."
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC; and can be played in VR on Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.
Crunchyroll has announced that DanMachi: Memoria Freese, a free mobile RPG that uses characters from the anime Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon, will have a limited-time Attack on Titan event. The event is exclusive to North America.
The event incorporates lines spoken from the original actors from the Attack on Titan anime. You'll be able to have characters from both Titan and Dungeon team up together as they defend Orario from a Titan's attack. The event launches on October 30 at 7 PM PT / 10 PM ET.
In DanMachi, you build your team from an assortment of Dungeon's characters and battle your way through an ever-changing dungeon that's different depending on the time of day you play. The game's original stories are created by Dungeon's writer Fujino Ōmori, and the anime's original cast voice their characters in the game. As a Gacha game, players spend currency--virtual or real--to unlock new characters to fight with and items to use.
Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon tells the story of Bell Cranel, a young solo adventurer who one day discovers the goddess Hestia in a dungeon. He pledges to serve as a part of her Familia and works hard every day to both serve his goddess and become worthy enough of catching the eye of Ais Wallenstein, a famous adventurer he's in love with. The original Japanese version of the anime can be watched on Crunchyroll, and both the Japanese and English versions are available on HiDive.
Attack on Titan is in the midst of its third season. In the anime, giant and seemingly mindless Titans roam the Earth for people to eat. The only defense against these Titans are giant walls that keep the monsters out, and the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment that allows soldiers to zip between buildings and trees at dizzying speeds to reach the Titan's only weak point, the neck. Attack on Titan is streaming in Japanese on Crunchyroll and in both Japanese and English on Funimation and Netflix.
DanMachi: Memoria Freese is available for both iOS and Android. If you're looking for more anime to watch, be sure to check out our fall 2018 anime guide.
The annual Overwatch Halloween Terror event returns for 2018, and it's live right now. As always, its release means Blizzard has added a variety of new cosmetic rewards to obtain from special event-specific loot boxes. The highlight, of course, are the nine new skins--including six Legendary ones--for the game's vast array of heroes and villains. While some of these simply dress someone up in a Halloween costume, a few transform their corresponding character into a frightful monster. Here's everything on tap for this year.
Undead McCree and Spider Widowmaker--both Epic skins--are among the new options introduced for Overwatch's 2018 event. There are also Legendary skins, such as Jack-O'Lantern Wrecking Ball and Swamp Monster Doomfist. Like previous years, skins can be found in limited-time loot boxes or be bought for 3000 credits. The Halloween-themed skins from previous years, meanwhile, are offered at a discount. Halloween Terror 2018 is now live and continues until October 31. Once it's over, you'll have to wait for next year to unlock any skins you missed.
Click through the images above to see all the new skins that have been released for this year's event. You can also check our video showcasing all the new skins. If you're eager to get your hands on some, buying a bundle of 50 loot boxes will net you 10 bonus ones for free.
Halloween Terror's PvE mode, Junkenstein's Revenge, has also r eturned. Taking place in an alternate reality, Junkenstein's Revenge tells the story of Dr. Junkenstein (Junkrat) and the Witch of the Wilds (Mercy) attempting to take over the fictional kingdom of Adlersbrunn. Their schemes are thwarted by a team of heroes composed of the Alchemist (Ana), the Gunslinger (McCree), the Archer (Hanzo), the Soldier (Solder 76), the Countess (Widowmaker), the Swordsman (Genji), the Monk (Zenyatta), and the Viking (Torbjorn).
Alongside this, there's an alternate version called Junkenstein's Revenge: Endless Night that mixes up the formula. For 2018, there are now 10 options for who you can play as. The new additions to the rotation are Tracer and Brigitte. The update introducing the event also makes a variety of changes to characters, as detailed in the patch notes--most notably, it reworks Torbjorn.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is out now, and it continues the franchise's history of explosive multiplayer, first-person shooter combat. Old mechanics and features return, such as the fan favorite Zombie mode, but the game implements several changes to the Black Ops formula. We've compiled everything we know about Black Ops 4 below.
Black Ops has a pretty lengthy history. The first, releasing in 2010, takes place during the Cold War in the 1960s, switching between CIA operatives Alex Mason and Frank Woods. 2012's Black Ops 2 moved the story to 2025, following Alex's son, David Mason. 2015's Black Ops 3, continued the previous game's journey into the future and followed operatives in 2065.
The first Black Ops featured the first playable protagonists in a Call of Duty game to speak during gameplay, and not just cutscenes. It's sequel introduced the Grief and Turned variations to Call of Duty's Zombies mode. The third game was the first Call of Duty title where Activision and Sony's partnership created limited-time exclusive DLC content for PlayStation consoles.
Black Ops 4 is the seventh Call of Duty game developed by Treyarch, one of the many video game companies under the Activision umbrella. The game is the first Call of Duty title to lack a traditional single-player campaign, instead including individual missions that each focus on the backstory of one of Black Ops 4's multiplayer Specialists. The feature is similar to the Operator missions from Rainbow Six Siege, but are more story-driven and tie together in an overarching plot. The missions take place between 2025 and 2065, making Black Ops 4 a sequel story to Black Ops 2 and a prequel to Black Ops 3.
Release Date/Day One Update/Preloading
Call of Duty Black Ops 4 launched on October 12 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC. The game has a fairly large Day One update, so be sure your system of choice has enough hard drive space. The game comes with special Deluxe, Digital Deluxe, Pro, and Mystery Box Editions, all of which are detailed in our buying guide.
Review
We have not yet published a full review of the game, but you can check out our thoughts so far in our Black Ops 4 early review impressions piece. In it, Kallie Plagge offers a look at each of the three main modes and says, "As a continuation of the Black Ops subseries, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 both benefits from and is limited by its past. Its standard multiplayer mode feels only tangentially related to what came before, rather than explicitly building upon it, and the bigger changes lose impact as a result. Zombies, too, mixes old and new; it's overflowing with content at launch, offering a brand-new story and a continuation of the existing one."
Multiplayer, Maps, And Specialists
For the first time in a Call of Duty game, Black Ops 4 ditches health regeneration. Firearms employ both hitscan and projectile damage, instead of just the former in the game's new ballistics system. Predictive recoil patterns and weapon customization return. Together, it makes for a more tactical experience that promotes teammates working together instead of playing as a lone wolf. Several classic Call of Duty modes--including Zombies--return in Black Ops 4, but the game also features the series' first battle royale mode, called Blackout.
Black Ops 4 launches with 14 multiplayer maps--Frequency, Contraband, Seaside, Payload, Hacienda, Gridlock, Arsenal, Icebreaker, Morocco, Militia, Jungle, Slums, Firing Range, and Summit. In November, the Call of Duty classic map Nuketown will launch for free, making a total of 15 maps in the Black Ops 4 base game. More maps will launch later as paid post-launch DLC.
Just like its predecessor, Black Ops 4 will feature Specialists in multiplayer. Each Specialist has their own unique loadout and is designed to handle specific tasks. There are 10 in Black Ops 4, six of which--Ruin, Prophet, Battery, Seraph, Nomad, and Firebreak--return from Black Ops 3. The other four--Recon, Ajax, Torque, and Crash--are completely new to the series.
Blackout
Blackout incorporates all the hallmarks of previous battle royale games. Up to 100 players drop onto a map and have to battle it out until only one player or team remains. Weapons and equipment can be scavenged from buildings, and vehicles can be found on the road and used to cross the map more quickly. The safe areas where players can survive gradually shrinks over time, forcing the survivors closer together into more hectic firefights. The mode can be played solo, or in squads.
Blackout is a little different from games like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite. For one, the map in Blackout is fairly large and encompasses a wide variety of different terrains and landscapes instead of focusing on a single theme, like a forest or desert. Blackout is the largest battlefield seen in any of the Call of Duty games, incorporating numerous landmarks and Easter eggs from past titles. There's also a slight PvE element to Blackout, as computer-controlled zombies wander around certain areas of the map. Killing them lets you earn special loot items from Call of Duty's Zombie mode, like the Ray Gun and Cymbal Monkey.
Zombies
The cooperative Zombies mode returns in Black Ops 4, but this time it features two separate storylines for you to play. The first, titled Aether, follows the reestablished Zombies storyline from the first three Black Ops games. The second, called Chaos, features new characters--Scarlett, Stanton, Diego and Bruno.
Exclusive PS4 Content
Like the Call of Duty titles in recent years, Black Ops 4 will have content that's exclusive to the PS4 for a limited time. This exclusivity period includes all seasonal events, new Specialists, and post-launch multiplayer maps. However, instead of the PS4 having a two-to-four week head start on the other system, the console will only have exclusive access to post-launch content a week early.
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